Let’s prove a point this afternoon.

Last time out at Villa Park.Villa Park is a location that sticks out in Newcastle fans’ minds as it was of course at Villa Park where Newcastle lost their Premier League status two years ago.

Damien Duff’s own goal was the difference on the day. It was an afternoon in which Newcastle only needed a draw to stay up, but they lost resulting in relegation to The Championship. Let’s not forget that we were woeful that season and didn’t do nearly enough in our 38 league games to prove we were a worthy of being a Premier League side.

It was a season of pure turmoil, Keegan walked out again, fans were at war with the board and above all the club had a group of egomaniacs in the dressing room who didn’t deliver on the pitch.

Many will agree that the relegation was a blessing in disguise and it gave the club a much needed reality check and kick up the arse. The club was going backwards and had it survived relegation that season then things probably wouldn’t have changed for the better. I even remember Michael Owen saying after relegation that he would have probably stayed on had we of beaten the drop.

For me Michael was symbolic of things wrong at Newcastle United. The man was club captain and lacked passion, drive and failed to inspire the rest of the team. He was seemingly happy to pick up his sky high wages every week. If we had stayed up and kept the ‘egos’ on their big money we wouldn’t be where we are now.

With all the above said, relegation isn’t a nice feeling at all. We are a set of fans that truly pour our heart and souls in to our club. Although long term the outcome of relegation has benefited us it doesn’t fully justify how disappointing it was to go down. It was humiliating and gave the Southern press the ammunition to maul us – mocking Newcastle United seems to be their hobby and job.

The Aston Villa fans seemed to have a good laugh at us that day. Who can forget the banner that a section of their fans held up reading, ‘Who’s your next messiah, Ant or Dec?’

Many will argue we got even with The Midlands club earlier this season when we dicked them 6-0 at St James’ Park. But I feel a positive result this afternoon would be a real chance to shove it in the faces of all the Villa fans who contributed to our misery in 2009.

We head into this game with a very respectable 39 points and you’d have to believe that a win would pretty much secure our Premier League status for next season. But with Villa in a bit of a battle themselves it certainly won’t be an easy game. Villa haven’t been in consistent form as of late, losing their last home game to fellow strugglers Wolves. Matt Jarvis’ strike the sole and decisive goal in that Midlands derby, although it would be foolish not to be wary of the likes of Stewart Downing, Ashley Young and Darren Bent.

With players of that calibre it is hard to understand how Villa are where they are currently, but the table doesn’t lie and that’s where they find themselves. Newcastle had decent players in 2009, but the morale at the club was at a terrible low and relegation was the consequence. I don’t think Villa will go down, but I have seen stranger things happen and you just don’t know with this league.

We will miss the suspended Kevin Nolan, who has been influential this season, demonstrating what it is to be a true club captain – Mickey Owen you can learn a lot from Kev in that respect. The return of Jose will be a massive boost and will almost compensate for the loss of Nolan, who will join Mr T(iote) on the naughty step for this one. Joey will be pivotal this afternoon and we need a performance from him. He has proved that he has great leadership skills and we will need that in the absence of Nolan.

Let’s go and prove a point there today, let’s ensure safety and let’s throw things at Habib Beye if he’s present. Speaking of relegation, where were you when we were sent down?

About MarkToon

I’m Mark, I live in a little town called Rugby. I go back a long way with Toonsy, we have traveled the country together watching the lads. I eat, breath and sleep Newcastle United!
Follow me on [email protected] MRStockers or add me on Facebook- Mark Stockley.

Hardly ripping things apart. Just pointing to basic punctuation – now properly fixed, I notice. If I were to rip things apart I’d be pointing to other problems, like redundancies, cliches, fragments of sentences, lack of commas, spelling, etc.